MAN TRAMPLED BY CATTLE
Activists want to honour the dead animals
A MAN who was charged by a rogue steer while on his afternoon walk in Rangeville was last night recovering in hospital from surgery.
Seeta Sharma, 69, was walking to meet his son at the Range Shopping Centre when a steer that escaped a rolled truck charged at him.
It knocked him down and broke his leg in two places.
Police were last night still searching for two escaped steers.
Investigations into the Toowoomba Range rollover are continuing.
TOOWOOMBA animals rights activists want to set up a make-shift memorial for the cattle killed in Monday’s truck rollover in Rangeville.
Vegans in Toowoomba cofounder Mo Orr said the group had called for people to place flowers on the corner of Cohoe and James Sts where a truck rolled over on Monday afternoon.
“It’s important (to set up the memorial) as nobody has seen these animals, they’re invisible,” Ms Orr said.
“The first people see of them are the neat little packages on supermarket shelves.
“We want to say to (the cows) that we see them and we’re sorry and we’re trying.”
She said members of the group had estimated 33 cattle, out of the 66 head on board, had died in the crash, or were shot dead after the crash because of injuries.
Ms Orr said she travelled to
the crash scene as soon as she heard about it.
“It was horrific,” she said. “There were cattle trapped, injured, dying and dead. One lonely steer was just standing all on his own.”
She said she attended the crash to “witness” what was happening to the cattle and to take photos for social media.
“The authorities would not
let me stay on my side of the perimeter and said I had no right to film,” she said.
“They moved me back to where media was. It was very disturbing and distressing.”
She said she was informed the animals who survived the crash would be loaded onto another truck.
“Those that were euthanised had the better deal. The
others, in the state they were in, would have been put on another truck, taken to a holding pen and slaughtered,” she said.
Ms Orr said she spoke with a number of bystanders on the street about animal rights issues.
“I asked them to reconsider their food choices as this shouldn’t happen.”